Family Christmas

When you have such a large family, it can be difficult to get everyone together on the actual holiday so we usually celebrate before or after. This year we celebrated it this past weekend and EVERYONE was able to make it! I’m pretty sure that was a first.

photo via Carolyn

The festivities began on Friday night when everyone arrived to Carolyn & Titus’s NEW HOUSE!! It is such a cute house and Carolyn really has an eye for decorating and DIY projects.

The guys didn’t waste any time getting an Age of Empires party going.. and going.. and going…

And what’s a family get together without some football. I was told the teams were Packers vs. Non Packers. Apparently the Non Packers won. I think Mya played on the non-packers team despite the fact that her dad is a Packers Fan. Mya says she’s a Cowboys fan (thanks, of course, to Derrek).

“Cora, show me your game face” :

She is obviously going for the cuteness factor tactic..

We took turns cooking meals and making snacks so I made White Bean Turkey Chili: It’s yummy and healthy! (Recipe Here)

While waiting for lunch to finish simmering, we played Telephone Pictionary. It was a riot!! It’s a game where everyone gets a sheet of paper, and you write a phrase or draw a picture at the top. You fold it over and pass it to the next person. They then look at the picture and write what they think it is or look at the phrase and draw what it says. Then fold it up and pass it on. It goes around in a circle until everyone has written & drawn on all of them. When writing/drawing, you aren’t allowed to look at the rest of the paper, just the one before. At the end, we unfold them all and see where things went wrong!

Here is how wacky things can get: With Mya’s help, I drew a Wizard of Oz scene – tornado, house on the witch, yellow brick road, red ruby shoes, and Toto. After it went all around the circle, it came back with a person lying dead next to a campfire and stinky shoes inside a tent… Um.. yeah. My favorite was “some bright shinning J’s” 😀

As the day wore on, it was filled with good food, games, laughter, and lot and lots of hot chocolate.

And movie snuggles:

In the evening we gathered together to read the Christmas story, share what has been going in our lives the past year, and pray.

And then, presents!

And more snuggles with the cutie patootie.

On Sunday, after church, (little) Titus got a sliver. And oh my was that a big ordeal. He must have thought he wasn’t going to make it because he was crying and screaming for people to pray for him. (um, how adorable is that?!) The situation was resolved a few minutes later but the question is, how many people does it take to remove a sliver from a 5 year old?

7. The answer is 7.

But that is family for you. Whenever someone is hurting, no matter how small, we rush to their side.